Re: compatibility between NSKeyedArchiver in GNUstep and OS X

[Dan Hitt]

Hi Richard and Greg,

Thanks for the info.

I'm not trying to archive any class besides NSArray and maybe NSDictionary,
but i am also using methods like NSCoder's (well NSKeyedArchiver's)
encodeBytes:forKey: and i wanted to make sure that these produce the same
output under GNUstep as MacOS-X.

I believe from Richard's remarks that this will be the case, so thanks
for replying.

dan


   > Full compatibility has not yet been achieved for gui elements.   I 
   > believe,
   > however, that most of the elements in Foundation/base archive in a way 
   > which is
   > compatible with Mac OS X.
   >
   > Richard, can you confirm this??

   Yes and no :-)

   The archive format itsself is MacOS-X compatible, and it is based on 
   property lists,
   so all the classes used in property lists are pretty well tested 
   (NSString, NSArray, NSDictionary, NSNumber, NSDate, NSData).

   In general, keyed archiving methods for other classes have *not* been 
   implemented and those
   other classes would probably not be written to archives in a form which 
   would work on MacOSX.

   However, it's unusual to want to archive the other foundation classes 
   when writing the
   archiving methods of your own classes (and always possible to avoid 
   using them).

   So, while keyed archiving implementations of other base classes are not 
   essential,
   it would be nice if people who wanted them could reverse engineer the 
   MacOSX and
   contribute MacOSX compatible code.
   We do not accept keyed archiving implementations unless they are MacOSX 
   compatible ...
   so any class which has encodeWithCoder: and initWithCoder: methods 
   containing
   keyed archiving code should be usable in a portable archive.